This short film – the first of three – introduces students to the idea that crime and deviance is not simply an individualistic pursuit – it has clear social causes.

With contributions from leading sociologists such as Stan Cohen the film traces these causes from the classical criminology of the 19th century focused on the nature of the crime, to the positivist analyses popularised in the mid-20th century that focused on the nature of the criminal.

This was expressed not just in terms of a “defective individuality” (the medicalisation of crime and deviance) but also a “defective environment” – the idea that the social causes of crime and criminality could be found by understanding the social environments that encouraged either conformity or deviance.